


forest child

by glowingjellyfishtreelights



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, POV Second Person, just an odd little thing, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-09-01 00:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowingjellyfishtreelights/pseuds/glowingjellyfishtreelights
Summary: You’re not sure how old you are, and you are walking through the forest.You’re not sure why you’re walking. You’re not sure why your bare feet are covered in the dust and green stains of several day’s travel- why there’s something dancing in your chest, threading your veins, coiling around your bones, something that feels like the fragile eagerness of tiny sprouts and the ancient spread of massive trees.You’re not sure about anything at all.But you begin to learn.(Memory loss and magic and ties to nature itself- funny, what all the Earthmates we know of have in common, isn't it?)





	1. Chapter 1

You are born in a house.

It is a very ordinary house- the only outstanding things about it are the same things present in every house that has been lived in, the impossibly unique markers of individuals with their own personalities leaving behind proof of their existence.

An ordinary house, with ordinary people, as much as anything so incredibly varied as life may be.

You are born screaming.

This is not unusual- infants scream. They scream and cry and wail, because everything in the world is new and frightening and incomprehensible, and how else is a little being, only hours, days, months old, supposed to communicate such a thing?

So yes, you are born screaming. You scream and wail as you are cleaned, placed in your mother’s arms, until exhaustion wins the battle and you sleep.

And when you wake, you begin to scream anew.

This is your life, and it does not change for six months.

It does not change until the day you are brought out to the woods, bundled to your mother’s chest, and she breaks through the outer edge of the trees to step into dappled shade.

You stare out at the world with wide, unfocused eyes, and for once, you are silent.

(This will not be remembered, beyond a distant, unknowable feeling of  _ safety _ and  _ home _ and  _ welcome _ and  _ peace _ , glowing warm and golden on the backs of your closed eyelids for years to come. Not even a fleeting glimpse will last of these days: when your mother ventures into the woods, your body held to hers, because for some reason only this alone will calm her child.

You will not remember the way magics surge and rise to greet the new baby, bright golden flurries of excitement, ponderous curls of bronze vining entwined with softly pulsing green. You will not remember the sights seen by your young, untried eyes- that what leaves your little hands grabbing at the air happily for hours, giggling at nothing at all.

Your mother will. She will remember the mysterious relief, the odd secret to appeasing her unhappy infant, the only place which can elicit peace and baby laughter, when everywhere else brings only screams. She will remember the wide, fascinated eyes and grabbing hands, chasing sights unseen to all else.

She will remember. 

You will not)

Your life continues.

Perhaps it’s nothing out of the ordinary, except where it is: perhaps you spend your time tumbling through the dappled light of the trees, bare feet crunching leaves underfoot, tripping into rivers, feasting on berries in the heat of summer’s peak. Perhaps you wander, sometimes, farther than your parents would like for you too. Perhaps as you grow, you chart more and more of these wilds inside your head, finding things long-swallowed by virid life and time’s constant march.

Perhaps sometimes, you pick your way through the shattered shells of golems, the crumbling stone of ruins strewn carelessly throughout, you feel something sharp and tingling in your fingertips where they brush rough grit. 

Perhaps sometimes, when you race from your home in the morning, when you break through the edge of the trees to take those first steps under their branches- perhaps, sometimes, it feels like something ancient and powerful and  _ alive _ rises up to greet you, a low, joyful hum curling to envelop and welcome, and peace settles into your bones at the same time as a restless golden energy sings through your blood.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

You wouldn’t know, after all- you won’t remember this at all.

You are fourteen, and there’s an urgency pulsing against your skull that you cannot place the cause of, driving you to distraction.

You are under the shelter of the woods, the canopy of trees draping the edges and endings like a cloak of slow-breathing life- the pine needles give way to cool earth under your bare toes, and under it all a massive network of roots stretch, and somewhere in a sense you cannot name you can feel the pulse of them drinking deep of the earth underneath it all.

You are enveloped by life, on every side and every direction.

It is  _ right _ . It is peace and homecoming and being perfectly settled into your skin.

And yet, still the warning twinges against your temples; leaves you twitching, unsettled, perched on the edge of fight and flight and not knowing on which side you’ll land. You hardly ever go into the village anymore, spending all your days as deep into the forest as you can go in a day, claiming foraging duty for your excuses. The deeper you go, the more the feeling fades, gentles- but never leaves.

There is Something Wrong, and you don’t know what it is. Something that should not be, and this you know down to the marrow of your bones.

But you don’t know what, or why. Everything is peaceful, everything is ordinary. Every day falling into the same rote patterns, the year-to-year paths in life traced over and over by the feet of a small village that must make down on their own. There is no reason for such alarm.

The feeling remains. 

The days pass; the months begin to rise in tally.

You spend almost all your time entrenched in an old ruin deep among the trees- you cradle your head, breathe in the comforting smell of green and living things. You curl your bare feet in moss, touch the pads of your toes to cool stone.

The urgent feeling of  _ wrongness _ grows by the day.

You are sixteen, though you no longer know it, when the world heaves so everything is skewed to a new angle all akilter and the forest spills honey-thick magic like bleeding, and a void tears open through the air and the magic and the  _ universe _ and-

-you don’t remember this.

You don’t remember anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re not sure how old you are, and you are walking through the forest.

You’re not sure why you’re walking. You’re not sure why your bare feet are covered in the dust and green stains of several day’s travel- why there’s something dancing in your chest, threading your veins, coiling around your bones, something that feels like the fragile eagerness of tiny sprouts and the ancient spread of massive trees.

You’re not sure about anything at all.

But you begin to learn.

You don’t know your name, or where you came from, or where you’re going, or what you’re doing at all. But a void gnaws at your stomach and you learn the gleaming red fruit on the trees will make it retreat- that when your head turns to light and tries to take to the sky a cupped hand of icy water may sometimes leash it back to the earth. 

You learn the fluff tangled in bushes and shed on the ground belong to the shy, skittering white creatures who you see playing at the edges of riverbanks, darting through patches of dappled sunlight, fleeing at the sound of an unexpectedly crackling stick. You learn that it is warm, soft, a _ comfort _\- that you can pick it up and wash it in the stream and tuck it under your head, or wrap it around your feet, or fingers, or neck, and warmth catches in the softness and curls against your skin.

You learn of shelter to be found in the crumbling shells of things like massive stone creatures, discarded and hollowed, in old ruins overgrown with greenery and teeming with monsters. You learn of things left behind, found in these structures- you find a short, rusty sword in one, a tumble of faded cloth in another that you use to wrap up the things you find and carry them along, bundled. You find a book you cannot read, and when you crack open the cover it makes your blood _ sing _ so close to the surface, you almost think that if you could just reach…

And here you learn that the book lets you pull part of that force inside you and twist it to exist outside you- geysers of water strong enough to send things flying, old crates and monsters alike.

You learn of _ magic _.

Harsh weather shoves its destructive fingers everywhere, no matter how deep the canopy you shelter under, so often you find yourself scrambling when the sky begins to rumble, the rain sheets down, light splits open the world and the ozonic air sparks on your tongue.

Sometimes this is a rock overhang- in fact, it often is. 

But sometimes-

-Sometimes you turn at just the right angle and something tugs at your chest, a direction hooked and drawn in gentle beckoning, and without fail following such a thing leads you to round thickets, break through a wall of trees, and find weathered stone stretching above your head.

These ancient refuges shelter more than you- other creatures dwell within, and you are not the only living being that was sent scrambling away from the furious downpours and shrieking winds. 

When the weather rises to peak like a furious deity’s wrath, when thunder crashes in deafening roars that leave ears ringing and can be felt quivering down to the marrow of your bones- when the wind screams and rain pounds and send whole trees crashing to the ground, snapping branches, uprooted entirely- when lightning lashes out in blinding display- the shelters fill with a thousand glittering eyes, with the sounds of clicking jaws and shifting feet and little squabbles in the dark.

You learn to respect territories, and which boundaries can be pushed, and which should never even be toed.

You learn to fight for the right to the ground under your feet, as well. The little sword you found becomes comfortable in your hand, after a few days of twisting your hand around the grip.

It’s one of those world-shaking storms, one that’s lasted two days and seems to promise two days more lying ahead, shrieking and plunging the world to pitch black when day’s light should still be bright, when you end up forging your way deeper into one of these old structures.

It’s curiosity, and boredom, and being tired of creatures spoiling for a fight seeming to be hunting you down simply for something to do. It’s also borne of a desire to know why, after two days of being trapped in the cold, watching water trickling across stone, you have noticed something deeper inside.

What is it? You do not know.

But it feels like a swell- like the way that force inside you rises to crest before you pull it out of your skin to bring forth the geysers of the magic you found in the tattered book that still bumps against your back, wrapped inside the scant bundle of your belongings.

It is enough, that it is familiar- hardly anything is, to you. And that’s enough to send you searching.

You’ve already long eaten the bare handful of food you’d brought in with you, but water is plentiful, caught cool and sweet in cupped hands. Near a window, a great floorstone has been shattered, fertile earth rising in its stead. This little patch is rich with plants you recognize, to your delight, and you fall on them happily, stripping crisp purple and blue leaves free of woody stalks and stuffing them in your mouth. Tender greens and yellows you eat in their entirety, and bright orange leaves set you to digging, unearthing their tuberous roots and scrubbing them clean by sticking them out the window, briskly flicking off dirt, relishing the cool crunch between your teeth as you bite into them.

Sated, bundling up some extras in your sling, you continue on.

You find the source of the swell in the deepest heart of the ruins.

Something large and ancient and restless roams among shelves and shelves of rotting books- scattered pages, torn pages, water damage and moldering covers. It is trapped, yet a guardian, and yet-?

You do not have time to ponder on what this being is, not when your first cautious step onto a floor carved with the grooves of massive claws sends out an instant _ ripple _ flashing out to bounce off the domed walls- and the unseen creature _ roars _, zeroing in on your impertinent trespass without hesitation.

A creature of shadow, of claws and spit-gleaming teeth and fluttering, tattered fabric rips through the last shelves between you and it, and you barely have the time to drop your bundled sling and firm your grip around your sword before it lunges.

There is an ache bright and white burning in your shoulder, where you landed on unyielding stone after a furious swipe sent you tumbling. The palm of your off-hand is raw and stinging, skinned against the roughness of the floor as you went scrambling for a weapon, anything to defend yourself with. The air is sharp as you pant it into your lungs, a new tome missing half its cover cradled to your chest, and your head is full of light and threatening to spin off into the sky.

A heap of tattered cloth lies in the middle of the floor- marking the spot where the creature broke apart, screeching and howling, into light, and vanished.

You decide now is probably a great time to sit down.

The world wavers a bit, as it seems your head is still not where it should be- you have the luck to have sat within reach of your bag, if in-reach means having to lean your entire body into almost a line to snag a sopping corner of fabric, dragging it closer. You fumble, flipping out the outer edges, but in the end manage to reach your prize- you pull out a limp handful of greens, two tubers, and reach out with both hands to drink deeply and greedily of a trickle of almost painfully cold water streaming from a crack in the wall.

You survey your surroundings, munching on your greens.

Bookshelves have been tossed every-which way- moldering and rotting wood crumbling away, haplessly giving out under the force of being thrown by enraged bestial claws after years untold of being attacked by the elements. One collapsed into a heap directly under a sizable leak of water, little splinters of wood being pulled away in eddies as the water quests to find a way further down. Many books remain only as shredded paper, or pages stomped into the ground, soaked and unintelligible, but-

-the swell of power only lessened, not vanished, when the creature shattered to light and magic and dissolved into the air.

In fact, now that you are here- why, there’s something else almost familiar to you, in little sparks and hidden glows among the ruined discards.

They feel quite a bit like the book you have lying in your lap- it itself a close mirror of the book that rests, bundled in the center of your belongings. Of the potential of power- of shaping, of changing.

Of magic.

You learn magic the hard way, not that you know of any other- the tomes you carry out into the light, once the storm passes, are still not written in a hand you can read. You’re left reaching, sensing, just experimenting- and learning from your results.

You learn that water and light come to you as easily as breathing. It’s only the barest of a second’s thought to bring these to hand, to wrap yourself in a glowing shell and lash out with water with enough force to topple trees.

Wind makes you sick.

Completely sick, caught in the dizzying chaos, helpless until the spell ran its course and let you fall- you’re sick for what feels like hours, gagging into the bushes, eyes squeezed shut and fingers dug into the earth, as if a firm enough grip would be enough to keep your body lashed to the ground when it felt so dangerously close to being thrown to the mercy of the skies.

No, wind is not for you.

Earth is solid and steady, reliable and safe, but it does not come so easily as water rises to your call, as light slides across your skin. It is more effort, and you feel it, afterwards- you can send geysers flying all day long and not feel a thing, but ripping a spike of earth free from the ground leaves you panting. Too much, and you’re left so lightheaded the first time you go too far it scares you- the act of thinking utterly impossible as you stumble along, so bonelessly exhausted after you fall to your knees by the stream, seeking water to drink on blind instinct, you fall on your side and sleep on the bank, water still dripping off your hands.

When you leave that ruin, you leave behind three tomes of wind spells, and four more that were simply too damaged to do more than weakly set off sparks in your hands.

You now own three books, and none of them you can read- but the magic inside them, you can reach for, and when you do, they rise to meet you.

How long do you wander this wilderness?

You don’t know. 

You do not keep track of time- it doesn’t even occur to you to do so. It is night when it is night, day when it is day, storming when it is storming. Cold days are cold, warm days are warm. Time exists in the present- you never think to dwell on the past, not really, for after all, what’s the point when you hardly have anything there at all to think on? 

And the future is hardly a thing you bother to dwell on, either, beyond stashing a surplus of food in your bundle if you so happen upon more than you can eat at the moment- you do not think on end goals, or future plans at all. Why would you? 

Your life is wandering. From food to water to shelter to food to food to water to food. You sleep lightly when you are tired, eat when you find food, drink when you find water. If you are curious about something you see, or feel, or sense, you go and investigate it. 

This is your life.

This is your life until, one day, you are walking, and you hear a curious babbling, faint and indistinct in the distance. 

It sounds familiar, but oddly so- a plucking at the strings of memory, but most of them have been long snapped, missing notes. It’s enough to send you wandering right for the sounds, curiosity bright in your mind.

Eventually, through a break in the trees, you see structures- not the structures you’re used to, no, not crumbling stone but bright wood and clean smooth rock- and around them, faintly, flashes of movement. The noise comes from there- that direction.

You push forwards.

“Ho, stranger! What brings you to town?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then we start it all anew- stranger comes to town. stranger has no memories. stranger is kindly given a farm. stranger works at farm and starts venturing into the wilds surrounding town. weird stuff starts happening and stranger seems to be the only one able to handle it?? stranger sure ends up fighting a lot of monsters for a farmer.  
and so on, and so on.

**Author's Note:**

> eyyy I'm sick again you know what that means  
this was just a thing I wrote to kind of help me flesh out a tone and a magic system and some other stuff for another fic I'm writing I may or may not put up sometime? and I liked some of the lines and how it turned out so I figured why not throw it out into the void.  
yes I know that Aria/Aaron from RF2 never lost their memories and that makes my summary inaccurate but they're like 12 and all your other protags are like. adults/late teens when they lose their memories so hey you never know!! they could have had themselves a bout with amnesia once they got older and ended up wandering off to another town and continuing the cycle!!
> 
> tl;dr: I have taken Creative Liberties because it pleases me


End file.
